A problem affecting the health and safety of a variety of workers is that of providing a safe, non-slippery, dry area upon which the workers can stand. Hospital operating room personnel are routinely required to stand and work in conditions in which the floor is inundated with several liters of distension media, blood, bodily fluids, and other liquids during a single procedure. The abundance of fluids released during surgery is due in part to refinements to diagnostic and surgical equipment, especially the improvements to endoscopic equipment and the widespread implementation of improved surgical techniques, especially the laparoscopic surgical techniques made possible by improved laparoscopy and other endoscopy tools during recent years.
Fluids dispersed onto operating room tables and floors are a considerable inconvenience to workers, increase the likelihood of contamination, and elevate the potential for spread of infectious disease.
Hysteroscopic, urologic, and some other surgical patients are often infused with a fluid distension medium. If a non-electrolytic distension medium enters the circulatory system, it can cause blood dilution and lowered ionic strength. Swelling can result as tissue takes up water to restore the correct blood osmolarity. A patient can suffer serious, or even fatal, complications if too much distension media is absorbed.
The amount of distension media that a patient can absorb without intolerably dangerous adverse effects is related in non-intuitive ways to various individual physical, chemical, and other factors. The preoperative nurse will estimate the volume of distension media that each patient is reasonably expected to absorb without complications by factoring the patient's age, weight, fitness, hormonal balance, the formulation of the distension media, the procedure being performed, and a host of other variables before the patient arrives in the operating room. Unfortunately, the full utility of that estimate can be realized only if the amount of fluid actually retained by the patient can be timely determined with sufficient accuracy while the procedure is being performed.
Based on these factors, it is easy to understand that surgeons, hospitals, and their patients would be greatly assisted by more accurate knowledge of the amount of distending medium retained by surgical patients.
To that end, surgeons often request the operating room personnel to report the amount of fluid that has been introduced into and received from the patient. Fluid limits are normally fixed between 500 ml and 1,500 ml., and surgery time is frequently limited to one hour. Unfortunately, it is difficult to reliably measure the volume of distension media received from the patient using traditional methods and equipment. Likewise, it is difficult to measure the volume of fluid infused with traditional methods and equipment.
In the effort to more accurately evaluate the amount of distension media returned by the patient, surgical drapes may be arranged to direct the returned fluid to buckets positioned on the floor. It can be necessary to halt the surgery while the unsterile contents of the buckets are measured. But, as can be seen from studying Table 1, the estimation errors for the amounts of fluid on the operating table and on the floor can be so large that there is little value in knowing the volume of fluid accumulated in the kick buckets.
What is needed is a practical way to collect fluids returned from a patient during hysteroscopic surgical procedures.
Also needed is a way to measure the volume of fluids returned from a patient during hysteroscopic surgery.
Another need is a practical way to collect fluids returned from a patient during urological surgical procedures.
An additional need is for a way to measure the volume of fluids returned from a patient during urological surgery.
A further need is for a way to collect and contain fluids discharged by a patient during childbirth.
Another need is for a way to collect and remove fluids received from a patient during orthopedic surgeries.
Another need is for a disposable surgical and diagnostic fluid control system having an integral drape.
Also needed is a fluid control system having pre-formed resilient dams to route fluids toward a collection point.
Yet another need is for a fluid control system having integral channels for routing suction tubing.
Yet another need is for apparatus making it possible to quickly determine the difference between the amount of distension media that has been infused into the patient and the amount of distension media that has been returned from the patient.
Embodiments of the present disclosure meet these needs, and more, by solving the long-recognized problem of containing and removing fluids received from surgery patients so that the volumes of the fluids can be measured and liquid dispersal throughout the working area can be minimized.